


She Loved You (As I Will)

by MissEmmanuelle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cousins, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissEmmanuelle/pseuds/MissEmmanuelle
Summary: Jon can only turn to one person to confide his deepest, darkest fears.





	She Loved You (As I Will)

**Author's Note:**

> Anon ask for jonsa-creatives on Tumblr.
> 
> anonymous asked:  
> Hello! I'd like to submit a prompt where Jon and Sansa have just found out about Jon's parentage, that his mother was Lyanna and that she loved him. Jon is wrecked by this and Sansa goes to comfort him. She apologizes for her mother and for how she herself treated him, that he should've been loved. That she will love him now. She holds him and he lets her and he cries out his grief. Thank you!!
> 
> Okay, I don't like sad stories and I'm crap at writing them so I gave this a little fluff ending. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Elle xxx (jonsaforlife/jonsa-creatives - come say hi!)

“Jon?” 

Sansa barred the door firmly behind her and turned to see Jon seated and staring into the crackling fire, pensive and deep in thought. She hadn’t seen him since morning or yesterday evening and the past few days before that. In fact, she hadn’t seen much of him lately ever since his return from King’s Landing.

There was no answer from him except a slight nod in her general direction. There was something markedly different about him lately; something in him had changed and it made him melancholy.  _Well, more than the usual brooding, I suppose._

Sansa almost tiptoed towards him and the sight of a tray of untouched food and an empty cask of ale caught her eye. Slouching as he sat before her, Jon showed a gaunt figure and it tugged at her heart. Here she was scurrying about storing food reserves by the wagon loads for the North to prepare for the long winter to come and yet the King in the North refused to eat.

“Jon? You missed the meeting with the Northern lords today. I thought I’d come by and talk to you about it.”

Sansa found a chair to sit near him as she waited for a response. Jon sighed as he glanced down and turned his attention briefly to her. It was a first time that Sansa saw his dark grey eyes appear bloodshot, tired and teary. Something was wrong, she knew it. Silence hung in the air between them and Sansa didn’t feel it was proper to prod further.

“What do they want now?” came the gruff reply and suddenly, Sansa wasn’t interested to tell him about the meeting with the lords. Jon had been crying. She knew that look well. It had been the first thing she looked at every morning, in the mirror, whilst sitting in her bed chambers in the Red Keep, ever since the news came of Robb and her mother, Lady Catelyn, butchered at the Red Wedding. 

“Jon, what’s wrong? Tell me, Jon.”

Jon gave a small sad smile, turning away from her again and stared back at the fire. She was accustomed to his brooding demeanour but there was something at the tip of his tongue, Sansa could sense it. 

“Jon, what happened at King’s Landing? Did they hurt you?”

Jon gave a slight chuckle at her question and it unnerved her.  _Enough of this._

“What did they do to you?” Sansa demanded albeit gently as her hand grabbed his, forcing Jon to look her way. 

“No… Not at all. Nothing I could not take. I’ve had worse. King Tyrion was kind to me.”

“Then what is it? Jon I wish you would tell me what happened. Please, Jon, try for me.”

Jon’s smile died as he recalled how the scroll was handed to him, that night when he was preparing for return to Winterfell. By Sam himself, no less, who had come all the way from the Citadel just to see him. Jon could never forget how happy he was to see good ol’ Sam and Gilly with Little Sam, now grown into a sprightly boy of four.

“I met my friend, Sam. The one I told you about, a brother from the Night’s Watch. He’s becoming a Maester now and he heard about my visit to Tyrion Lannister at King’s Landing.”

“And? What did he do, Jon? What did he say?”

Jon could only smile at Sansa as he recounted the fateful meeting, struggling and fighting from bursting in tears. How he wished such scrolls and records didn’t exist, perhaps getting burnt in a great fire - how blissful it was not knowing what was ahead of him.

“Sansa, all my life I wanted to be a Stark. I loved Father very much, I loved all of you very much and all I wanted was to be a part of it. I even thought of your Mother who had been kind to me.”

“Jon, you  _are_  a Stark. You are. To me.”

“No.” Sansa pulled her hands away from him and came to rest on her lap as she glared at Jon.  _Wasn’t being a Stark what you have always wanted?  
_

“I’m not a Stark.”

Sansa huffed indignantly and bit down her lip. “You are the chosen King by all the North. And they know no king but the King in the North whose name is Stark. Don’t you remember that?”

“Aye, they did but I never wanted it. Winterfell is yours and it had always been yours, Sansa. And now… I cannot be King in the North any longer.”

Sansa’s heart raced wildly as she tried to calm herself down.  _Don’t leave me again, Jon. Why do they always leave?_

“You have a duty to your people! They chose you because they know you care! You can’t leave them now! Not when winter is here. This is your home!” Sansa could not believe she was having this conversation again with Jon. 

“Aye, this is my home. This will always be my home. The North is a part of me, you know that. I will die fighting for it. But the North can’t have a foreign born King,” Jon said quietly.

“Foreign born? You are the blood of Winterfell! You were raised here, like Robb and Rickon and Bran!”

“Sansa…. Winterfell will always be my home. But I am no Stark.”

“By whose authority? Sam the Maester?” Sansa scoffed at the ridiculous turn of their conversation. Jon kept silent and got up from his chair. There was truly no easy way to talk about it. Sansa seized his wrist, pulling him to return to his seat. Jon sighed as his eyes met with hers. It did not escape him, how Sansa had grown into such a fine beauty; with her striking fiery locks and eyes so blue that no seas in Westeros could rival. 

Jon had found a kind and compassionate confidante in her, he admired her wisdom and her gentle lady courtesies with the Lords and Ladies. She would be a better ruler than him, as he discovered that more and more each day. Lady Sansa Stark had become well-loved and respected among her people when they learned, while in his absence, how she loved and cared for every beating heart that beats for the North. 

Jon treasured the moments they shared, feeling proud and a somewhat unsettling fondness had grown in his heart for her. Whatever he felt, did not matter now, however. 

“That scroll that Sam handed to me, decreed that I am no Stark…. Well, at least my mother.. was.”

Sansa frowned as she tried to grasp what Jon was telling her.  _A Stark lady.. Jon’s mother?_

“I don’t quite understand. What are you trying to tell me, Jon?”

Jon blinked at her and paused as he chose his words carefully.

“Sansa, I’m not a Stark because my father is not Ned Stark. I am not his son. I was born in Dorne to Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Jon waited as he watched Sansa come to terms with the newfound knowledge. He remembered feeling the same way when Sam told him what he knew.

* * *

_“That makes you the heir to the Throne,” Sam spoke, quiet as a mouse as they both sat in the solar Tyrion had prepared for him at the Keep. “Jon… Do you know what this means?”_

_He knew very well what it meant. And yet, he did not see any glory in it. Gods be good, why would anyone want to be King?_

_“I don’t want it. I never wanted any of this, Sam. The Great War is over, my duty here is done. I just want to go back home to Winterfell and wait for the day I die. Peacefully this time, I hope.”  
_

_Sam pursed his lips and Jon knew there was more he had to say. “What is it?”_

_“Well, if you think about it, Winterfell isn’t your home anymore no? I mean, by birthright. Your rightful home would be Dragonstone. You’re a Lord of a castle now.”  
_

_“I am no Lord of anything. I am a bastard and mind you, I’ve learnt that perhaps it is better off being one now. Winterfell is my home, not Dragonstone. I can’t stay there. Not after what happened.”  
_

_Sam nodded with a pout._

_“I’m sorry she died, Jon She fought bravely with her dragons against the White Walkers. Maybe that’s the way of the gods. That she was not meant for the Throne. You are.”  
_

* * *

“Lyanna Stark… Father’s sister… our aunt? She is your mother?”

Jon could only nod. What was there else to say? He was still grappling with this hidden truth kept from him for all his life.

“Aye. I’m not Jon Snow. I am Jaeharys Targaryen. At least that was what it said on the deed. I’m not a Stark.”

“But.. How would you know that? If that were true?”

“I trust Sam more than any other man in this world, Sansa. He would never lie to me.”

“But Aunt Lyanna died! She died far away from the North. She couldn’t be….” Sansa paused as she glanced at Jon. His features were very Stark like, there was close to none of the Targaryen qualities in him. She remembered her father once said how Arya reminded him of  Aunt Lyanna and how Arya and Jon looked so much alike. Her hands flew to her mouth as she made sense of it all.

“She died giving birth to me, Sansa… My mother, Lyanna Stark died, because of me,” Jon’s head dropped low into his hands, his lips quivered as he mentioned his mother’s name.There was no stopping the tears and sobs. He finally knew who he was, who his mother was. She truly was highborn and beautiful, as he had often dreamed she would be. He was part Stark, there was no doubt ever in him that he was one. But being part Targaryen, was something he was not quite prepared for. And there he stood, the last Targaryen. It was a dreadful lonely feeling when the realisation struck him; Maester Aemon was right - it was terrible thing for a Targaryen to be all alone in this wretched world.

“Oh Jon!” Sansa came down from her chair and pulled him into her arms as she knelt before him. There was never a time in his life where his body was wracked with sobs and tears flowed freely; than where he was at that moment, in Sansa’s embrace - it was liberating and cleansing no matter how the tears stung, his throat ached and his heart raced. 

It was as if he had gone back in time, when the memories flooded his mind of him growing up in Winterfell, envying the Stark kids with Father and their mother; how he cried his little heart out during those times he had to be shooed away like a beggar boy; how he was tasked to finish lowly chores in the stables and sleeping on the dirty hay as his little body grew tired, whenever noble guests came to visit. 

He was shame in the flesh, a taint on the Stark name and on Ned Stark’s honour. He was ashamed of his existence and hated himself; there had been many times, he wished he could run away and oh, how he prayed to the gods to grant him a short life. He had never asked to be born, let alone be born a bastard. He was always ready for death to take him, wherever it would take him, Jon was certain, it would be far better than living as a known bastard.

“I didn’t want to live, Sansa. I never asked to be born a bastard… I did not ask to be treated like scum! I was just a boy who didn’t have a mother.. And now I know who she is.. I-”

“Hush now, Jon… I am so sorry for all the times I have been mean to you.. I truly am sorry! Forgive me?”

“We were children. There’s nothing to forgive, Sansa.”

“And my mother… Oh Jon, I know how she was to you! I hope you forgive her for anything she has ever said or done to you.. Oh dear gods, if only she knew who you really were, you’d be loved just as much as any of us. Oh Jon, I am truly sorry!” Sansa felt her own cheeks wet and warm from her own tears, her heart breaking at Jon’s show of grief. There was nothing he could say, Lady Catelyn had every right to despise him for the misery he brought to her perfect family - also his family too, now by blood. 

“Sansa… I harbour no ill feelings towards her nor to anyone. I am done with that. I… I-I only wish I knew more about Lyanna. How I wish she was there to hold my hand or  hold me when I cry… And I cried so many times, wishing she would save me from a bastard’s life. Sansa, I wished I knew her,”

Sansa could only imagine the pain and heartache that overcame Jon. She knew what losing a mother felt like but she also knew a mother’s love. She was luckier than most and she had lived through a happy childhood living in Winterfell, unconditionally loved and fussed over constantly. Sansa wiped away at her tear stained cheeks and released Jon from her arms.

“Jon.” Sansa whispered as her thumb lifted Jon’s chin for his downcast eyes to meet hers. 

“She would love you. She would love you so much that she would fight for you, for you to stay alive and well. Perhaps, that’s what she made Father promise, to look after you and he did. She would love you, Jon. As much as my own mother loved me. I am sure Lyanna would love you like any mother would love a son, had she lived. And she still does. She’s still a part of you,” Sansa spoke softly as her hands cupped his face and wiped the tears that wet his cheeks. 

“But I don’t belong here now. Aye, it’s my home and I have nothing but love for it. It just feels strange coming back as King now now that I know I wasn’t born here, like you were,” Jon squeezed gently, her hands that were cradling his face. He glanced quickly at the pink lips that were just mere inches away from his. They seemed so soft and inviting and Jon sighed at how his heart grew three times its size, delighting in the comfort that was Sansa’s arms and he only wished he could stay in them for as long as she would let him.

“No, Jon. No matter what anyone says, you belong right here.”


End file.
